First Youth Poet Laureate of the United States Amanda Gorman Visits Here & Now

Tonya Mosley, co-host of Here & Now, speaks with Amanda Gorman, first Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, about the ways she uses poetry to spark transformative change. Listen to their complete conversation via WBUR. From Gorman's poem published at Here & Now, "What Words Begin": 

What Words Begin

By Amanda Gorman

The word ‘race’ first arose
In the English language in 1508. Of course,
It appeared where all
words are born:
a poem. when
A Scottish writer
Spoke of a long line of kings,
And the dancing deadly sin of envy.
So what is a poem, if not a beginning?
An announcement that heralds itself?
Moments of air molded like melted wax.

I always thought language was
Akin to the body,
Padlocked oh so delicately to a pulse.
It tells you in the beginning was the word.
This was before 1619, before Trayvon, before Till,
Before Malcolm and Martin and Michael went still.
Before the echo that is breath’s
Pilgrimage to the start of the sound.
Before the inception of a new poem,
When I am bent and gasping,
Stripped skinny, thatched thin,
A wild note waiting to be sung.
I am braced against beginnings
I cannot name, my breath wheezing
So hard as to stain the haze of night.
My teeth are bared,
My tongue a rare thing, flared and forked.
I’m the damsel. The dragon. The dork.
A furious flower--
I dare you: bury me, wilting, under your feet.
For what is stepped on cannot be stepped over.

Continue reading Gorman's poem and listen to her complete conversation with Tonya Mosley at Here & Now.